North Korea will “mass produce” nuclear weapons
This picture taken by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on March 25, 2012 shows Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung square crammed with people for a national memorial service on the 100th day since the death of late leader Kim Jong Il. North Korea held a national memorial service on March 25 to mark the 100th day since the death of leader Kim Jong-Il, hailing the country’s nuclear weapons programme as his outstanding feat.
According to documents reportedly found by the Japanese press, late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had ordered that the country "mass-produce" nuclear weapons.
Mainichi Shimbun reports that the revelations came from internal Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) documents produced in February of this year. The documents were reportedly to be used to train mid-level officers.
Kim Jong Il, who died in December of last year, had apparently ordered the "development of enriched uranium nuclear weapons along with plutonium nuclear weapons", the paper reported.
"To tell the truth… (the late leader said) we are not waiting for the uranium-enriching technology to develop so it can be put to use by civilian industries", the report was quoted as saying.
Officially North Korea has said that its nuclear program is aimed at producing a solution to the country's well-known energy problems. If true, the documents would be the first time that official documents have acknowledged that weapons are an aim of the program, South Korean agency Yonhap News notes.
It is not clear when the late North Korean leader made the statements.
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